Wilmette fire chief credits sprinklers for preventing devastating fire at public works building

Wilmette Fire Department / HANDOUT

Wilmette firefighters were called to the village's public works department at 711 Laramie Ave. after a Sept. 6 fire set off sprinklers in this public works garage storage room. Sprinklers kept the damage to an estimated $15,000 in the one room and prevented the fire from spreading, Fire Chief Mike McGreal said.

Wilmette firefighters were called to the village's public works department at 711 Laramie Ave. after a Sept. 6 fire set off sprinklers in this public works garage storage room. Sprinklers kept the damage to an estimated $15,000 in the one room and prevented the fire from spreading, Fire Chief Mike McGreal said. (Wilmette Fire Department / HANDOUT)

Wilmette's fire chief is crediting sprinklers for keeping a Tuesday storage room fire at the Wilmette public works garage from potentially engulfing the entire building.

The garage at 711 Laramie Ave. in west Wilmette sustained an estimated $15,000 damage in the incident, which was called in as an alarm shortly after 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to Fire Chief Mike McGreal, but the cost could have gone much higher, he said Sept. 7.

He praised village administrators and fire prevention bureau officials who decided a little over eight years ago, at the time the village added an addition to the public works building, to retrofit the garage with a sprinkler system.

"They didn't have to, but they had the forethought to do it," McGreal said. "That is a multimillion dollar facility, plus the vehicles in the garage that are very expensive, and very difficult to replace. In minutes, this could have been a total loss if there hadn't been a sprinkler system."

Had flames from the storeroom not been dampened by sprinklers, they could have spread to the building's wooden roof, he said.

The 15,400-square-foot public works garage houses most of the village's public works vehicles and equipment, including front end loaders, back hoes, dump trucks and sewer vac trucks, he said. Wilmette's daily public works services would have suffered significant problems if that equipment had been lost in a fire, he said.

McGreal said fire crews that responded to the alarm found the sprinklers in use and smoke coming out the garage's main bay. They upgraded the alarm, which called in help from the Winnetka, Northfield, Evanston, Glenview, Skokie, Morton Grove and Highland Park fire departments. However, fire crews found most of the fire under control in a storage room used by the village's sewer department, where it appeared to have started, he said. Crews put out the remaining flames, and the incident was cleared by 4:15 p.m.

There were no injuries, Engineering and Public Works Director Brigitte Berger said Tuesday.

Investigators are still trying to determine what caused the fire, McGreal said.

"All's well that ends well," McGreal said. "They're back in business and they're cleaning it up now."